Review-Somewhere West-KG5

  15-5-13

By: Meaghan McGurgan

This afternoon the students of KG5 were kind enough to invite me to their production of Somewhere West. It was an original piece devised and directed by the students. I was impressed to hear that they had only been working on it since Easter. It's a delightfully absurd piece that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing. It's a myriad of absurd clowns that are traveling through their world dealing with issues we all face: body image, domestic abuse, unrequited love and hate. Go to this show with an open mind and you are sure to enjoy yourself.

First, the quality of this show is not "amateur" in any way. It's better than a lot of shows that I've paid to see in Hong Kong by professional companies. The show is an excellent value at tickets only costing 40 dollars, (the price of Starbucks; such a bargain!) If you have the evening free tomorrow and can shuffle over to Ho Man Tin, I highly recommend this piece. It's incredibly well done.

The cast is incredibly well balanced. It has a small cast of actors that both helped in the creation of the piece and the performing. These students are Rachel Eames, Katie McGuire, Arisa Yasaratne, Alexandra Nye and Robert Malcolm. My favorite scene in the show was a simple scene between two actresses. Cleo (Eames) and Ruth (McGuire) stood on stage and moved around in perfectly synced singular steps. Reminiscent of Wilson's repetitive choreography, the girls wound within one another both physically and through words.

The part of the show that I feel needs improvement is the transition between scenes. Each scene ended with a sharp black out. Then we would wait a couple seconds and the sound would start. The snap to black and silence was a powerful combination the first time we saw it but by the 5th time it had lost its effect on me. The sharp cutting of each scene ruined the wonderful flow of the text they had going.

If you saw 1927's The Animals and Children Took to the Streets at Hong Kong Arts Fest and loved it, then you will really enjoy Somewhere West. It has a bit of 1927's essence in it (minus the high tech digital set design). The show is a wonderful blend of Seuss meets serial killer.

Somewhere West is playing through tomorrow (May 15th) at King George the Fifth School in Ho Man Tin. For more information, click here.


Related articles:

review, theatre, hongkong

Rate This Show: 1 2 3 4 5 Audience Rating: 4.2

Comments

  • Gary Aubin
    15 May 2013

    What a brilliant show. This cast will go far.

  • Francesca Wood
    15 May 2013

    It has been an honor to work with them and I believe that they will be brilliant in the future. Well done guys! I love you all xx

  • editor
    15 May 2013

    The flames on this post have been removed. Comments of that nature will not be tolerated.

  • Wiley
    15 May 2013

    This is most definitely the most excellent play of the century. Because I am in it. C:

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